The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) claimed responsibility for Tuesday's raid on Tikrit's provincial council building which led to a bloody, hours-long gun battle with Iraq security forces.

It said its five-man suicide team launched the attack, which also left 97 people wounded, to avenge "crimes" against Sunni Muslim inmates at a local prison, according to a translation of an ISI statement by the SITE Intelligence Group.

"The ministry of war of the Islamic State of Iraq directed the security details in Salaheddin province to direct an appropriate strike against these people that would bring them back to reason and repulse their evil from the oppressed Muslims," a SITE translation of the statement read.

Tikrit is capital of the Sunni-majority Salaheddin province, which has long been a bastion of a Sunni insurgency and remains the scene of bloody attacks.

The attack raised questions about security after US forces complete their Iraq pull out at the end of this year.

Forces from Iraq's Shiite-majority government are now solely responsible for the country's security, with the United States having declared a formal end to combat operations in the country in late August 2010.

US forces responded to the brazen Tikrit attack and some were lightly wounded, according to the US military.

There was no immediate claim of the attack until ISI's statement, which SITE said was released on jihadist forums on Friday.

Iraqi officials had said the raid bore the hallmark of the Al-Qaeda affiliate.

ISI provided moment-by-moment details about the bloody clash with security forces. It said its "lions of Islam" first detonated a car bomb to clear the way for the fighters, then one of them set off his explosives in a suicide vest, before colleagues fired guns and hurled hand grenades at Iraqi government soldiers.

The group said its men engaged in a seven-hour firefight with security forces before running out of ammunition.

"The leader of the group gave the command to stop the clash, go to the entrances of the building and lie in wait for the groups of apostates, so as to detonate their explosive belts against them and thus kill more of the charges of the devil," ISI said, according to SITE's translation.

Tikrit remains volatile. In mid-January, a suicide bomber killed 50 people in a crowd waiting outside a police recruitment center, in the first major strike in Iraq since the formation of a new government on December 21.

earlier related report
Six dead in attack on security post west of Baghdad
Ramadi, Iraq (AFP) April 2, 2011 - Six members of the Iraqi security forces were killed just before dawn on Saturday when their control post in the village of Kubisa, 200 kilometres (125 miles) west of Baghdad, was attacked by armed raiders, a police spokesman said.

The men -- three soldiers and three police officers -- died in the attack at 5 am (0200 GMT).

Eight other people, including four civilians, were injured in the attack in Al-Anbar province.

None of the gunmen was killed or captured.

Al-Anbar, which covers Iraq's western desert, is a former stronghold of the Sunni Arab rebellion.

Violence in the province had begun to tail off after tribal chiefs, weary of Al-Qaeda attacks and backed financially by the US, rose up against the extremists in September 2006, forming militia dubbed "Sahwa", or Awakening.

Elsewhere, one militiaman was killed when a control post was attacked by armed men in two cars in the village of Hawija, 230 kilometres (145 miles) north of Baghdad, militia spokesman captain Tahar al-Salehi said.

In the capital, a homemade bomb exploded as an army patrol passed in a northeastern suburb, killing one soldier and wounding three others, an interior ministry spokesman said.

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